When I am asked for one word to describe myself, I always answer, “Creative.” So when I think of my self as an artist, I do not so much think of a particular media I work in, but the fact that it is in my very soul to be creative. I can’t think of a time in my life, that I was not expressing myself through written or visual media.
As a young person I wrote poetry and took photographs, as a mother at
home I began to paint. I am a self taught artist, who went back to college
in 1998 to learn to draw. Unfortunately, colleges and universities expect
you to already know how to draw so I have still had to practice that on
my own.
What I was exposed to was the world of knowledge, and the media of printmaking.
As an artist I go where the wind of inspiration leads me. Sometime I paint,
sometimes I am doing a combination of media such as photography, computer
graphics and printmaking. I don’t see myself as an artist who has
a need to recreate the natural world through landscapes, still life, or
portrait painting. Rather for me my art is an expression of some longing
deep within my soul. It is a communication between me and my god. It is
an expression of a constant search for meaning.
I returned to college in 1994, graduating with a BFA in 1998, and an MA
in 1999.
In 1996 I helped to form the Hammonton Arts Center to promote the appreciation
and participation in the visual and performing arts.
I served as the art center’s president for the first couple of years, organizing exhibits, gallery sitting, cleaning, hanging work, or whatever it took to keep our newly formed center going, and helping the center to find its first building on Central Avenue.
While in that location, the art center board set up annual exhibits that still continue to this day. We also helped to bring art out from the center into the community by starting regular exhibits at the Hammonton Public library, local banks, the Heritage Assisted Living, and the Atlantic County Human Services building in Northfield. I have served on the board of the Hammonton Revitalization Committee, Arts on the Avenue, and the Hammonton Arts Center. My work has been exhibited at the Hammonton Arts Center, Atlantic City Art Center, Ocean City Art Center, Perkins Center for the Arts, the Noyes Museum, and the Rowan University Art Gallery.
I am currently a Graphic Design and TV Production teacher at Vineland High School North, and Graphic Design Professor at Cumberland County College.